Wednesday, June 18, 2008

I was proud to be a part of our Summit County community on Saturday when we gathered along Lake Dillon and walked as part of the Great Strides Fundraiser for Cystic Fibrosis! We only had about 200 walkers, but together, we raised over $60,000 for the cause!

Friday, June 13, 2008

Being home a few days from my amazing Yellowstone trip, I have been editing photos and wanted to share my favorite images. Some have been shown in previous BLOG POSTS and some are new, but they are my favorites.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

I have a couple sad stories that have been weighing on my heart though my week in Yellowstone and the week after....

The first is the only wolf we saw up close and the only wolf I have ever photographed. It was following the river and we happened to be right across the river (at a potty stop) when the wolf and the throngs of folks following the wolf came passing through. (There was a long traffic jam following the wolf!) Once we saw him (or her?) in our telephoto lenses, you could tell that the wolf was injured. It had a bad rear leg. Watching it and photographing it made many of us sad, pondering how it can survive in the wild with this injury? Here's the best photo I was able to get with my 18-200mm lens...

And moving on, we spent quite a bit of time watching this mother moose and her baby calf....there was a lot of activity, a lot of park service attention, a lot of vehicles, and we finally heard the story, that the calf had been injured by a bison.

As the story goes....a bison scared off the momma moose, and then the baby kept approaching the bison. After several failed attempts, the bison finally got rough, and injured the poor baby moose. There were some rumors of broken back, broken legs, etc. Some of us were too sad to even photograph the baby moose...but last we heard, the pair were doing fine, and everyone had high hopes that the baby would recover. Nature photographer Dave Cowell was able to get some dramatic photos of the event itself which are online at the Yellowstone Forum.

OK, one final last sad story....all week we were following the activity of Rosie and her two cubs....a black bear momma with two red tags in her ears, therefore the name Rosie. She has two cubs that are around 5 months old (how does one really know this about bears since their cubs are born when they are hibernating???) And we spent lots of hours in the rain watching Rosie & Cubs and got attached!

Well after getting home this week, I have heard some sketchy reports and photos of Rosie and one cub being injured...I read this on a Yellowstone Forum, and there's a Second Post with photos. I guess I got a little attached to those little cubs looking through that big lens for hours!

But as I am sad to see injured animals, obviously there is need to keep Yellowstone wild and not do a lot of human intervention. Unfortunate for Rosie and cubs, but I realize the harm us humans can do when we try to dictate what should happen in the animal world.

I have certainly learned a lot about photography, wildlife, and our planet through this great Wildlife Workshop! Those are the best vacations when you get away, spend lots of time in the great outdoors, have lots of laughs with friends, and learn something at the same time!

Monday, June 09, 2008

Sometimes when I'm together with a bunch of photographers, all I can come up with is silly photos....all of us out there in the rain, so excited to capture a wonderful image....but my brain must have been in the toilet a few of these days as all I could photograph is these funny photographers with their funny lenses!

What do you think these two are doing?

"That's a funny lens - is that Nikon or Canon that has that extension?"

"Sure isn't the way I learned to handle a big lens in Photo School!!"

How many big lenses can you fit in one vehicle?

On a rainy day, Heidi was bored and decided to look into her neighbor's ear with her big lens!!

"Which photographer would you hire? The one outside in the pouring rain, or the one shooting through the window of the car? Tough choice!"

Since most of my Yellowstone photos were of the wildlife....I thought I would share a few favorite people photos! The rangers were fun to photograph....at each "bear sighting" there were rangers that were part of the "bear management" program keeping the peace betweeen people and bears.....

One would have to have a sense of humor working all day long trying to keep tourists from approaching bears, leaving their cars in the middle of the road, or any other things us tourists tend to do around wildlife! And being in front of this line of big cameras all day would have it's challenges also! And every once in a while I got a feeling of being in Jellystone Park with Yogi the Bear and Boo Boo!

And heading out on a photo shoot with a bunch of photographer friends, how can there NOT be a lot of people photos? My buddies, Heidi Haas Williams and Barb Edeblute joined me on this workshop and we had some HUGE fun with these HUGE lenses!

Art was another participant in the class who has the patience of a saint, and a great attitude, with enthusiasm for photography that never ends! (Well maybe it ended at the wildflowers and scenic photos, but his enthusiasm for WILDLIFE photography is endless!) At the end of the 7 days, I had never heard him complain or even yawn once! Even when provoked!

Our fearless leader, Dale Franz, gets an A+ for a wonderful workshop and his endless energy.......even through long days, a bad cold, a car full of giggling women, and even one sick from the altitude! Dale has great skill in photography, willingness to share information, a great network of friends in the park that helped to locate the most interesting subjects, and he even knows a lot about Nikons although he's a Canon shooter! I would recommend this workshop to ANYONE! My friends and I rated this the best of all the workshops we've been on, and we've been on a LOT of photo workshops! So finding a workshop for next year will be very hard....we all want to return to Yellowstone with Dale!